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The Flushable Poop Bag - It Dissolves! The responsible way to deal with your pet's waste! 50 Bags for $19.95

See Also: Pet Diapers - Disposable and Washable

A flushable and dissolvable bag provides a convenient, environmentally friendly answer for people tackling the issue of pet waste. Designed from polyvinyl alcohol the flushable bag is perfect for people wanting to clean up after their pet and not store the waste in their trash.
50ct.

Anyone with a pooch companion knows it's true.
Have dog, will scoop.

That fact is more visible this time of year, as people gear up for the great spring doggy doo clean-up at local dog parks Saturday and in their back yards.
But what to do with the scoopables is up for grabs.

Firms market all sorts of doo-dads and contraptions promising to aid with lawful disposal or burial of dog poop. But a dog-inspired dissolvable bag available at HandicappedPets.com provides a convenient, environmentally friendly answer for people tackling the doo disposal issue.

Robert Howell developed The Flushable Bag, made of polyvinyl alcohol, two years ago after taking early retirement and becoming his family's official dog walker.

Howell's wife, Sue, had the idea of making a flushable product. And after testing hundreds of materials - aided by the Howell's yellow lab, Molly - Howell came upon the meltable PVA film commonly used for things like collecting and washing hospital laundry and instruments. He gained rights to market the product in North America and contracted with English manufacturer Aquafilm Limited to produce the bags. The translucent green bags measure 7.9 inches by 9.8 inches and are water soluable.

Tim Osswald, director of the Polymer Engineering Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, describes polyvinyl alcohol film as an environmentally-friendly, non-toxic sister to the compound that makes up Elmer's glue.
"The basis of it is that the material will degrade," Osswald explained.
Flushable Bags are sold through several local retail stores and were recently picked up by HandicappedPets.com, the leading supplier of products to help caretakers of animals..

They're also being test marketed at Dane County's dog parks as an alternative to composting dog waste.

"We hoped to do a proof of concept in Madison, show that there is a need for the product," Howell said. "People that use them really want to use them."
The bags do work, confirms Madison recycling coordinator George Dreckman, even if they do cost a little more to use than a regular plastic bag. The difference is, these offer the convenience of breaking down when flushed.

"We really don't want you to put it in your trash. We want you to flush it down your toilet or bury it in the back yard," Dreckman said.

Dane County parks director Ken LePine said his department started testing the bags at local dog parks two years ago. Known as an innovator of dog exercise areas, the county wanted to find out how the bags performed in different weather conditions and whether dog park users would take to them.

"We've had pretty good results so far," LePine said. "We've got to develop alternatives that are acceptable to the user, friendly to the environment and are economically feasible."

This summer, LePine hopes to put into use a tank, similar to a portable human toilet, at the Token Creek dog park. Park users would collect their dog's droppings with the Flushable Bag, then place them in the tank to be disposed of much in the same way human waste is handled.
Eventually, LePine said he'd like to move toward such a system at all of the county's dog parks.

"I think we're going to have to deal with dog waste in a different way," LePine said. He estimates that the parks currently dispenses 150,000 waste bags - flushable and paper - to park users annually. "All we're doing is trying to figure out ways in which we can make improvements in the future so dog waste doesn't have to stay on the ground and get washed into the waterways."
LePine said the county is looking for more vendors to assure the supply of bags that would work in such a system.